Places Listing in Search Results
-
Hi everyone,
We have a company that hired us to set-up their Google Places listing for their 2nd location. The listing for the 1st location is very strong. Lots of reviews, Zagat rating, Knowledge graph, etc.
In the search results the Google Places listing for the 1st location has merged with the website listing. You can see the link to the main site w/ a small grey google places listing directly below it.
The client would like BOTH Google places listing to show up in the search results. They both show up on the map listing but not in the search results.
Each location has its own listing in Google Places. We have also created different pages on the website for each location.
Is there a way to get the search results to display places listings? I have noticed a few other business have done it by naming each of their multiple locations something slightly different. Then the search results seem to realize there are multiple locations and display the places listing in the search results.
Anyone run into this? Any ideas?
Thanks!!
-
My pleasure, Joe!
-
Thanks again for all your help!
-
Hi Jason,
I like to have both locations on the contact page, and list them separately on the respective landing pages. Regarding citation building, you can use the unique landing URLs in creating the Google+ Local pages. For other citations, you could try the same, where allowed, but some sources might only let you link to the top level domain. A mix of both should be fine.
You're very welcome and I'm so glad to be of help!
-
Thanks again for the info! Both locations are in the same city. They are a few miles apart. I have never had much of an issue ranking business in Google Place before but I have not done much with multi-location.
Do you think it makes a difference if both locations are on the same contact page or is it better for each location to have their own page on the website?
Also, I should just build citations back to the main index page correct? Not to the contact page(s).
Thanks again!
Jason
-
Hi Jason,
Thanks for providing this additional detail. Yes, that is quite possible for the multiple locations to show up, as in your examples #1 and #3. On your example #2, all I'm actually seeing is sitelinks under the organic listing rather than actual local listings, so that is a bit different, but on your other two examples, yes, for a branded search, that's a common display.
You will note that in those two examples of the brew pub and doughnut shop, the results are all within the same city. Are both of your client's locations near one another? The reason I ask this is, say I do a search for a huge franchise like Jack in the Box. There are 2 of these in my town, and Google shows me both locations in their local results for a branded search...but, they do not show me the thousands of locations this franchise likely has in my state. So, the results for the branded search are being localized automatically to me. So, I do want to confirm that your client's 2 restaurants are near one another so that they can receive that Jack-in-the-Box-type treatment in the SERPs (the same display as in your examples #1 and #3).
My guess is that you will come to see this same display for your client when:
-
The listing is more established (1.5 months isn't very long in Local)
-
Your citations for the second locale have had time to go into full effect (some can take many weeks to become active).
*This is of course under the proviso that the new listing is violation free (adheres to all these guidelines: http://support.google.com/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=107528) and that you've done a good job with the Local SEO on the website and on the landing page for the new location, with good markup, and good, non-duplicate content. If you feel confident about this and the 2 locations are near one another and you give it some more time, I would expect Google to start showing your client's two locations eventually. Remember, too, that refreshes don't happen every day in terms of changes in what is being displayed in the Local results, so that will take some time, too. A few good links to the new landing page on the website wouldn't hurt, and be sure the internal linking structure of the site is clear and strong and I think you have every chance of the client achieving this display eventually. What I would not do is make the client any promises as to when this will happen. You can let him know you're doing everything you can to make the data available, but that it's up to Google to pick it up and use it.
Hope this helps, and yes, I do hourly consulting for many different businesses. I'd be pleased to hear from you, Jason, and you can contact me via solaswebdesign.net.
Good luck!
-
-
Andy, so nice of you to say! Thank you.
-
Thanks so much for taking the time to respond. It is the latter. Same thing that is happening in your example. I am doing a search for the actual business name. The problem is the client wants both of his locations to show up when someone searches of the business name. He would like the main site to show up then the map listings below.
Here are some examples:
The new listing is about 1.5 months old now. We have been consistently building citations since then.
Both Google Maps listings have the same name and the same website in the account. The adresses, phone numbers, faxes, etc. are different though. It's the same restaurant just 2 locations.
Any ideas you have would be great!
Also, I have a few other tricky Google Places accounts I am working on. Do you do any type of phone consulting? Might just need 15mins of your time.
-
I'll leave this with Miriam... she's one of the best Local experts around Jason
-
Hi Jason,
You write:
"In the search results the Google Places listing for the 1st location has merged with the website listing."
Is there a way you can link to an example of what you're talking about...if not of your client's site, then of some other business that has the same type of display. Your use of the word 'merged' is making me unsure of whether you are talking about a merged Google+ Business and Google+ Local page, or if you are simply describing that the non-merged Google+ Local page is showing up as part of your client's listing.
Here is an example of the latter for a branded search (containing the business name):
Is this what you're talking about or are you talking about an actual merge of the Google+ Business and Google+ Local page for a brick and mortar business model?
Also, I'd like to ask what types of searches you are performing. Are they business name searches or are they like: "chinese restaurant san francisco" that are bringing up the original location and the display you're seeing, and what kinds of searches are you doing for the new location that are failing to bring up any listing of the business.
Also, how long ago did you create the new Google Places/Google+ Local listings and how long ago did you begin building citations for this new location? Both take time to go into effect.
*I definitely do not recommend using anything but the actual business name in listing your business. For example, should you choose to add a city name to the business title fields on your Google Places/Google+ Local pages for these businesses, that would be considered spam and could lead to penalties.
The more information you can provide, the better.
-
Yes. Both locations have their own phone number, fax number, and location.
Right now both Google Places listings link back to the main page. We did create individual pages for each location though. Each page has separate info, map, etc.
Thanks for the reply!
-
Does each location have a separate phone number?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Search function rendering cached pages incorrectly
On a category page the products are listed via/in connection with the search function on the site. Page source and front-end match as they should. However when viewing a browser rendered version of a google cached page the URL for the product has changed from, as an example - https://www.example.com/products/some-product to https://www.example.com/search/products/some-product The source is a relative URL in the correct format, so therefore /search/ is added at browser rendering. The developer insists that this is ok as the query string in the Google cache page result URL is triggering the behaviour, confusing the search function - all locally. I can see this but just wanted feedback that internally Google will only ever see the true source or will it's internal rendering mechanism possibly trigger similar behaviour?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MickEdwards1 -
Bulk reverse image search?
Hi, i have a couple fashion clients who have very active blogs and post lots of fashion content and images. Like 50+ images weekly. I want to check if these images have been used by other sources in bulk, are there any good reverse image search tools which can do this? Or any recommended ways to efficiently do this for a large number of images? Cheers
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | snj_cerkez0 -
Is this organic search sketchiness worth unwinding?
Started working on a site and learned that the person before me had done a fairly sketchy maneuver and am wondering if it's a net gain to fix it. The site has pages that it wanted to get third party links linking to. Thing is, the pages are not easy to naturally link to boost them in search. So, the woman before me started a new blog site in the same general topic area as the first/main site. The idea was to build up even the smallest bit of authority for the new blog, without tipping Google off to shared ownership. So, the new blog has a different owner/address/registrar/host and no Google Analytics or Webmaster Tools account to share access to. Then, as one method of adding links to the new blog, she took some links that originally pointed to the main site and re-directed them to the blog site. And voila! ...Totally controllable blog site with a bit of authority linking to select pages on the main site! At this point, I could un-redirect those links that give the blog site some of its authority. I could delete the links to the main site on the blog pages. However, on some level it may have actually helped the pages linked to on the main site. The whole thing is so sketchy I wonder if I should reverse it. I could also just leave it alone and not risk hurting the pages that the blog currently links to. What do you think? Is there a serious risk to the main site in this existing set up? The main site has hundreds of other links pointing to it, a Moz domain authority of 43, thousands of pages of content, 8 years old and Open Site Explorer Spam Score of 1. So, not a trainwreck of sketchiness besides this issue. To me, the weird connection for Google is that third party sites have links that (on-page-code-wise) still point to the main site, but that resolve via the main site's redirects to the blog site. BTW, the blog site points to other established sites besides the main site. So, it's not the exclusive slave to the main site. Please let me know what you think. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 945010 -
Google search results
I have been doing some searches on google to see where my new site shows up, I started using the search words "graphic design firm st. louis" as a gauge, because my title is St. Louis Missouri Graphic Design Firm. I showed up on about page 5 to start , if I include the word "firm" and a few pages further back if I just search "graphic design st. louis", without the word firm. It seemed i was slowly moving up pages with both searches and then a few days ago I jumped to page 1 for search "graphic design firm st. louis" the thing is it doesnt show up at all now if i search "graphic design st. louis" without the word firm. what would cause the one search to jump so high while the other one dissapeared completely?? and what can i do? my keyword density is same for both , any ideas.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | eric69660 -
ECommerce search results to noindex?
Hi, To avoid duplicated content and the possibility of thousands additional pages to an ecommerce website would it be a reasonable solution to have the page as a no-index, would this benefit the site? Thanks **Lantec **
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Lantec0 -
Rank Tracker Result Not Reflected In Google
I'm tracking keyword results in Rank Tracker, but I can't confirm the positions when I do a Google search for the tracked keywords. Does anybody know why RT says the site should be #23, but is not actually in Google? Is there a way to check Google results from different data centers? If I recall, Google allowed the option to view results from different cities, though I don't know if they still allow this.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | alrockn0 -
Best practices with reoccurring event listings
On our client's events page there are a few reoccurring events that each have their own detail page. I'm trying to figure out what's the best practice for minimising duplicate content. For example, for the Bribie Island Markets that repeat weekly there are 2 (+more) detailed event pages: http://www.ourbribie.com/e/bribie-island-markets/1869/2013-12-07/2013-12-07
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | michaelp85
http://www.ourbribie.com/e/bribie-island-markets/1869/2013-12-14/2013-12-14 While they both contain duplicated content, they're unique in that they display the specific events date/time. My thinking is that the future events (e.g. 2013-12-14) should have a canonical link to the upcoming/next event (i.e. 2013-12-07). However this would require constantly updating/changing the canonical links. What's the best way to deal with this from a duplicate content prospective? Any better recommendations?0 -
Is there any correlation to time and search ranking?
Is there any evidence that google acknowledges the time that a site has been online with all other things being equal for search ranking?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | casper4340